Below is a transcript of my interview with Yo La Tengo bass player James McNew. The band performs Saturday night at the Calvin College Fine Arts Center Auditorium.

Press: Explain the idea behind the Freewheeling Yo La Tengo Tour.

McNew: There's shockingly little behind it. And yet there's so much behind it (laughs). We did a concert back in the springtime at New York University, where it was kind of proposed to us that we would play some songs and talk to people and take questions. It sounded really interesting, and it turned out to be hilarious and shocking and really fun and surprising for us, and I'm sure surprising for people who were watching it.

It was unlike we had really ever presented to the public before. It was very strange, yet really enjoyable.

The Yo La Tengo shows I've seen have all had a pretty laid-back vibe to begin with. How is doing a whole tour like that going to be different?

I'll tell you in a couple of weeks, I guess. I do not know. I do think that that's true. I think that when we present ordinary electric rock shows, there are long stretches of the show where you're not exactly going to get a chance to interact with us because we tend to string songs together and vary the level of intensity that we're playing. I think this will be a lot easier.

So you're not sure what it'll look or sound like?
It'll be quiet. It'll be acoustic guitar, bass and a small drum set up, and the three of us right up front.

Will you get to do any of the talking?

Oh yeah, it's a free for all.

What kind of stories might come out?

I have no idea. Whatever anybody asks about or whatever comes up. We have no remarks planned. We really have no songs or anecdotes rehearsed.

That'll be interesting. I'm excited to see how it all works out.
I'm excited myself. Normally we prepare quite a bit for playing and things like that. This is very exciting to just kind of be winging it.

You'll be taking requests, too?

Yes. There's no sets or anything. It's just...(laughs)...we'll see what happens.

How do you feel about how 'I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass' (the band's most recent album) was received, now that you're a year or so removed from it?

I'm not sure what the cut-off is for perspective. I'm not sure when that arrives. I remember when it very first came out, I was really excited. People seemed to be responding to it, like, immediately, which is pretty unusual. I'm sure that's more a byproduct of being able to get records digitally and get them right away.

Normally, a band will release a record and go on tour and play lots of songs from their new record, and people will just kind of stare at them. And then they'll play a song from their previous record, and people will go crazy. And then the next time, a few years later, the band puts out a new record. They play new songs from that record, and people will stare at them. But then they play songs from the other record, in which people were previously staring at them during the last tour, and they'll go crazy this time, because they've had time to live with it and sit with it.

It was kind of surprising that when we first started playing shows in support of this record, people knew the beginnings of every song, and it was really cool. It was kind of thrilling in its own way.

Two of your recent projects have "ass" in the title. (His side project, Dump, released an album in 2003 called "Grown-Ass Man.")

Sure, it's a great word (laughs).

Where did the title "I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass" come from?

It does come from something. It comes from a fight between two people, the source of which I don't think I would ever really reveal. I think it's more entertaining when you just try to imagine why the hell we, let alone anybody, would call a record that.

The thing that I think is really appealing about that title is that it does just kind of make sense if you work on it long enough. I think it's a universal theme.

There's a looseness to that record that kind of stood out compared to previous albums. Was there any difference to how you put the songs together?

No, not really. I think process-wise and creation-wise, not much has changed in a long time, in many years and albums worth of working together. I think we just sort of have a way of working and a way of collaborating, but the results always seem to be changing in weird and unexpected ways.

We've also worked with the same guy, Roger Moutenot, who's produced and engineered all of our records in the last, jeez, 14 years. We have a really good...infrastructure? Would that be the appropriate term? It's all kind of in place. Maybe that helps. Maybe not having to worry about that stuff frees us up to kind of wade out a little further and try things we've never tried before.

Maybe the sequencing of the album is what gave me a different vibe. Starting out with a big, sprawling track like that kind of caught me off guard.

I like that. I think the day we came up with that song, we were all in agreement. As soon as we recorded it, it was just kind of understood that it would be the first song on the record. We just all nonverbally agreed and knew right away.

The first time that we played that song in front of people, a friend of mine realized probably 10 seconds into the song that I was never going to change the part. Because I just play the same part for 10 minutes or so, and she just realized, 'Uh-oh, I know where this is going.' But it was a happy uh-oh, not an 'I should leave' uh-oh.

I liked how the record would alternate between those long jams, then concise pop songs, then tracks that are kind of in the middle.

We were pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I saw you guys at the Pitchfork Festival (in Chicago) just before the record came out, which is kind of an interesting way to be introduced to a new album.

I thought so. Apparently, the general Pitchfork organization consensus was that they weren't pleased with our choice of set, which I thought was really weird.

They weren't?

I guess they weren't interested in new music. I was really confused by that. We thought we were totally pandering to the concept of a new music festival. Like, 'OK, we have a whole new album to play. I can't figure those guys out.'

Yeah, it seems hard to keep the Pitchfork people pleased.
Who knows? It was so hot that day, I'm amazed anybody even remembers.

That's one thing I do remember about that day.

That's two summers in a row, or three? We were just in Chicago for Lollapalooza, and I guess that was about a year apart from the Pitchfork festival last time, and we were in Chicago on the hottest weekend of the summer two years in a row. I don't want to make that an annual thing.

How was Lollapalooza?

Hot. Oh my god, it was just brutal. Playing was kind of fun. I felt like an alien, I think. There wasn't much on our day that I really can relate to musically. It felt kind of strange to be there among all these other groups that I'm not really sure we have anything in common with. But playing was really fun. I had a really good time. And the Stooges were pretty good, I thought.

You guys recently did the score for "Old Joy." How is that different than doing a Yo La Tengo record?

It's totally different. In the case of "Old Joy," and in the case of all the movies that we've scored, we work really closely with the director. The music is usually one of the last things to be put in place. They'll work with a temporary score just to give you an idea of what kind of mood music and certain themes should sound like. And we'll compose something that we hope will fit their needs.

It's totally different because when we make records, we make all the decisions about what's right and what's wrong. Here, we're trying to work to the vision of the director who's poured his or her life into this project for a couple of years before we even start working on it. It's hard to work that way, considering the freedom that we have making stuff on our own.

It's challenging. It's fun. It's like a whole new way of writing music and composing stuff. Technology-wise we do all the recording and editing and technical stuff ourselves in our rehearsal studio, so that part of it is very different because I go home with a headache every night from staring at the computer screen and cutting things together.

I wanted to ask you -- I play in a band that has not one, but two married couples in it, so I wondered what the third-wheel experience has been like for you.

(Whistles) Wow, very Fleetwood Mac, I hope. Actually, I hope NOT. Sorry, I take that back.

How's that dynamic worked out for you?

I'm sure not as intense as it is for you. No, I don't think about it, really. It's rare that I ever think about it. It's not an issue. I'm sure it helps tremendously as far as communication and support. It's contagious.

I get my own room, which is fine. That totally works out for me.

What did you think of 'The Simpsons Movie.'

(Laughs) I thought it was pretty good. I thought it was ... classy is really the word that I came away with. I thought they handled it really nicely. I didn't think it was that funny, like a season six or season seven episode. But I thought the story was good, and it wasn't just little frivolous pop-culture jokes and throwaway guest stars. Really, the only guest voice was Albert Brooks, and there's no classier move than that.

I wondered why they didn't make Mr. Burns the villain instead of him, though.

Yeah, there were a lot of "whys."

Like, why they didn't make Rainier Wolfcastle the president instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That I didn't understand. That made no sense to me.

It seems as if they used up most of the good jokes they've been saving for how many seasons...

Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure. Things change over time. It was a weird reality to have to deal with the fact that... am I changing, or is "The Simpsons" changing. I don't know. It still makes me laugh, but maybe we've kind of gone our separate ways over the years. It's a bittersweet thing to have to think about. I based many years of my life on the teachings of that show. Really, kind of the mid-90s was all about that show for me. There was really nothing like it.

I read a great quote from somebody who said that, on his deathbed, much of what flashes before his eyes will be 'Simpsons' moments.